A Boy Who Loves You
by dogstar-ebony
Summary: When you've spent 6 years annoying someone, it's going to take a lot more than a declaration of love to win their heart. James Potter is about to find this out the hard way... JPEL, 7th year.
1. The Lure of Trouser Fishing

_~ The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy who loves you ~ _

_The Book Thief_, Markus Zusak

**_Chapter One – The Lure of Trouser Fishing_**

"Look, Potter, it looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while, so why don't I stay here and you go sit over _there_?"

I tried to make the words sound threatening. Serious. Hell, I'd have settled for _meaningful_. As it was I just sounded vaguely irritated. Which possibly explained why my attempt at open hostility only made James' grin widen further. He did as he was told though, which was a result in itself as I'd never seen him do something I told him to without the threat of physical violence, but of course, being James Potter, he had to do it as ostentatiously as he could: he spread his arms wide as he lowered his body to a sitting position on the floor, bowing to me as went, before finally ending up cross-legged, still grinning inanely up at me.

We were sitting, cramped and uncomfortable, in a large cleaning supply cupboard. A _locked_ cleaning supply cupboard. One which, just to make sure my day was _completely_ crap, belonged to Filch, the caretaker. Not that any of this seemed to bother James particularly. This might have been because I was stuck in here with him, which provided him with a free pass to annoy me for however long we would end up in here. Of course, it might also have been because this was his plan all along.

From my awkward position on the upturned bucket I scowled at him, folding my arms irritably across my body. The scowl only intensified his crooked smile; I blinked and looked away, determined not to let it affect me. It wasn't that he was unattractive; far from it. But I knew that if I let the warmth in his smile persuade me into a better mood, then forgiveness wouldn't be far behind it.

And it was, after all, entirely _his_ fault.

Apparently, whenever most boys were being taught the way girls work, James Potter was absent. And he clearly had never seen a romantic film or read a love story of any description. As a result, he seemed to have no concept of the idea of _romance_, or making a girl feel special and cherished and beautiful. The only answer I could come up with was that, with no guidelines to refer to, he had simply made up the rules himself. And unluckily for me, I got to be the guinea pig to his _charming_ techniques. Forget sweeping me off my feet – James' idea of wooing someone went:

1) Girls are impressed by public declarations of your undying love – do so at every opportunity. Don't just stop with the girl – tell her friends, tell your friends – heck, tell random strangers in the corridors until she gets the hint and is suitably romanced.

2) No matter how many times the girl rejects you, she'll say yes eventually – just keep asking until you hit the magic number that changes her mind.

3) If all else fails, arrange to have her locked in a cleaning cupboard with you until she realises she loves you back.

Since parts one and two had failed spectacularly on every single occasion since we were both about twelve, James had finally hit upon number three. We'd been in here for about forty-five minutes so far, James having lured me in here by telling me it was a shortcut to the special new Common Room the two of us were entitled to use now that we were Head Boy and Girl. Thinking it was one of the many short-cuts he and his friends seemed to have found hidden all over the school over the years, I stupidly followed him in, not realising it was, in fact, a large cupboard.

I quickly discovered my mistake.

"What the _hell_ - !" I spun around in the dark space and nearly walked into James, stood far too close behind me. "Where are we?"

There was a clicking sound as the door was locked. I looked around blindly, confused. James pointed his wand to the ceiling, muttered "_Incendio",_ and light flickered into the room from the lamp that hung there. I stared around in stunned disbelief. I assumed he had lit the tiny room; I could hardly imagine someone else strategically placing little candles around the place like fairy lights which glittered from their various 'romantic' positions on top of upturned buckets and boxes of cleaning lotions.

Next to me, James stood grinning, his nervousness evident in the way he was turning his wand over and over between his fingers, his eyes resting lightly on me. He was waiting for my reaction. He didn't need to wait long.

"What the _hell_ is all this?" I screeched.

"Do you like it?" he asked pleasantly. I gaped at him.

"_What?_"

James spread his hands, indicating the tiny space, and repeated his ridiculous question. "Do you like it?"

I stared at him, incredulous. "It's a _cupboard_, Potter! We're surrounded by mops! Now get out of the way so I can get out."

James didn't move. The nervous fiddling with his wand returned, though I could see there was a grin trying to break free from the way the corner of his mouth twitched a little. Annoyed, I shoved past him, heading for the door. He barely moved as I brushed angrily past him.

"I wouldn't bother," he said calmly as I yanked the door handle, rattling it in frustration. "I've locked it."

"Then _un_lock it!" I muttered, the word slipping out between clenched teeth. "Right _now!"_

_"_I can't."

He said the words so quietly I thought I'd misheard him at first. I continued rattling the door handle uselessly for several more seconds before getting frustrated and screeching with rage. This was ridiculous. Reaching into my back pocket I groped for my wand; it wasn't there. I swore under my breath, racking my memory in a vain attempt to remember when I last had it. Then...

I spun around to face James. "Have you taken my wand?"

James shrugged nonchalantly. "Might have."

This was too much. I flew at him, arms flailing, trying to steal back my wand, hoping that at the very least I could cause him physical pain. I hadn't reckoned on James' six or seven years of Quidditch training having sharpened his reflexes – he was used to dodging Bludgers constantly and making sudden dives, and so neatly sidestepping a mildly homicidal girl was not particularly challenging for him.

I stopped myself just short of slamming into the back wall and turned to face him. My chest heaving with exertion, I glared at James. I probably looked feral; in the attempted struggle my hair had messed up, falling out of its neat ponytail, and I was pretty sure my furious eyes were wild. Either way it didn't dissolve the wide grin on his face. My jaw set as I stared at him.

"Open this door, Potter. Right _now_!" I spoke slowly, enunciating each word, feeling my rage making them vibrate. My eyes had to have been bulging by now.

James spread his hands apologetically – or at least it looked apologetic. "No can do, I'm afraid."

"_Why not?!_" I definitely sounded a bit crazy now. I realised my teeth were bared with a twinge of embarrassment, though the twinge was nowhere near large enough for me to hide them again.

James smiled once again. I could see every one of his own gleaming white teeth. I fought the urge to slam my fist into them.

"Well, mostly because I don't want to. It's not exactly a punishment for me to be locked in here with you." He grinned as if I should be won over by his honesty. "But also it's because there's a FailSafe Locking Charm on the key which means we can't get out without it. So things like _Alohomora _wouldn't work anyway -"

"So why did you steal my wand then?" I snapped, the feral rage giving way to pure irritation now. "If I couldn't use it to get away from you anyway?"

"Well, I had a feeling you'd go a bit mad when I told you." He paused and indicated me with a sweep of his arm. "You know, kind of like you just did, only with magic. And I didn't really fancy being hexed to death. So I took it from your pocket as we walked in."

"Where's the key?"

"Never mind where the key is -"

"Potter." I tried to force calm into my voice but it was getting increasingly difficult now that I had sighted my escape route. "Give me the key or I'll take it myself."

He grinned openly now; a brief laugh escaped his lips. "I'd love to see you try."

I folded my arms aggressively. "You think I won't, Potter?"

"I believe you will," he answered. "But I'd still love it if you tried."

"And why's that, then?" I asked. My voice positively dripped with sarcasm.

He laughed out loud now. "Well, for a start, the key's somewhere on my person. And I don't have any pockets."

I narrowed my eyes at him as realisation set in. "You've hidden it down your trousers?"

"Well, my boxers if you want to get technical -"

"Believe me, Potter, I want nothing less than to get technical about anything that involves your underwear!" I turned away from him, beyond annoyed now: his stupid triumphant grin was making things worse. "Okay, fine, you win; I won't try to get the key. But _why_, Potter? Why lock me in here in the first place?"

He shrugged, his face full of helpless apology. I'd have given in and punched him there and then if his eyes hadn't looked so sincere; if they'd held even an ounce of the mocking or triumph I was expecting to find in them – or a shred of the happiness they'd had a few minutes ago at the idea of me fetching the key from his pants - he'd have been laid flat out on the floor. Then we'd see who was in control here.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Ever hear of a Common Room?" I snapped. My voice was under control now – I was capable of not shrieking at him like an angry owl, but forcing the anger from my voice had allowed an unbelievable amount of sarcasm to creep in. Meaning that, far from my beating him to death with his own shoe, it looked far more likely that I would snap at him to death instead. For a start, I wasn't finished. Far from it. "It's what most people think of first! Most normal people don't automatically decide to lock the other person in a bloody cupboard!"

"I tried the Common Room," James replied. His voice, contrastingly, was even and pleasant. So, clearly, he wasn't going to play along and argue back. Git. "You never talk to me."

"I talk to you all the bloody time, Potter!"

He was shaking his head now; I watched his hair ripple and tried not to imagine ripping every single one out from its roots. He lifted his eyes to me so that I could see the reflection of the candlelight flickering in them, burnishing the hazel to an almost-honey-gold colour.

"You don't." He said the words flatly; there was no inflection in them, nothing I could have found offence in. "So I thought if I could get you somewhere where you had to listen to me, you might -"

"Fall in love with you?" I snapped waspishly. I sat down heavily on an overturned bucket, resigned to my fate. I closed my eyes tightly in frustration at the ridiculousness of the situation. This was clearly his plan – keep me in here long enough and eventually I'd realise that I did love him after all and I'd just been completely blind for the last six years, and we'd buy a little cottage in the country and get married and live happily ever after and have fifteen children and a d-

"No. Hear me out."

The words were a whisper, barely an expulsion of breath, but they were loud enough in the confines of the tiny room to break into my angry imagination and attract my attention. He sidled a little closer to me, noticing my momentary lapse in thinking of all the most painful and humiliating hexes I could possibly use on him. Looking up from my less-than-dignified seat I scowled at him.

"Look, Potter," I said bluntly. "It looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while, so why don't I stay here and you sit over _there_?"

By now nearly an hour had gone by since we first entered the cupboard, and very little had changed. I had yet to undergo the total personality transplant that would make me realise that James was in fact my knight in shining armour and that I'd apparently spent all of puberty dreaming of entirely the wrong fairytale romantic hero for myself when clearly the starring role should have been James' all along. I had confidence in the extreme that it would never happen. James, apparently, did not.

"I don't try to annoy you, you know, Evans," came the voice from the floor. I shuffled around on my bucket, trying to escape him. Unsurprisingly, I was unsuccessful.

"Yeah, well, you don't exactly make a very convincing case for yourself," I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear the derision. "For future reference, locking me in a cupboard isn't a great way to put me in a good mood."

He chuckled to himself briefly and brought his knees up to his chin so that he could clasp his hands around them and watch me more comfortably.

"What is it about me that annoys you so much, then?"

I snapped my head to him. There was no smirk on his face. He was, unbelievably, actually asking.

"D'you want a list, then?" I said, making sure my arms were still tightly folded so that he could see I wasn't in the mood to deal with him, so that it was clear that his sudden sincerity wasn't affecting me in exactly the same way the stupid candles weren't affecting me. I'm not sure who I was trying to kid, myself or him, but either way I needed to convince somebody that not even a tiny part of me wanted to listen to anything he had to say.

"So it's a whole list?" James' voice sounded faintly amused, though his serene expression did not change. "I'd still like to hear it. For future reference."

"Maybe I'll tell you sometime when we've both got a spare year free." I smiled sarcastically at him, secure in my triumph.

James merely lifted his head from his palms so that he could indicate the tiny space around us with his hands. "Well, in case you hadn't noticed, Evans, we are locked in a cleaning supply cupboard. I've got no desire to leave just yet and you've got no way of getting out without the key. And as getting that key involves some intense trouser fishing from you, I'd say we've both got quite a lot of time to kill. Wouldn't you?"

"You know something, Potter? Forget the stupid list – that, right there, is why you annoy me! That!"

I hadn't realised the words were going to come out until they did. I had planned, throughout his little speech, to cross my arms tighter and flick my hair in an irritated way, and make all the exasperated sighing noises and the frustrated huffing sounds, and to stare him out until he was embarrassed and had to look away. I'd been going to be haughty and uninterested in anything he said. But because he was James Potter and because he'd spent the last six years perfecting his art, he knew precisely how to irritate me. And just then, I didn't care if he'd done it deliberately or not, and I didn't care that I found him vaguely attractive in spite of it, and I really didn't care that I'd planned not to say any of this and punish him with the not knowing, because suddenly I was determined that he was going to find out exactly why he made my blood boil on a daily basis.

"You're so bloody arrogant!" I continued, my words a furious hiss. Soon I would graduate to shrieking at him again, if I let six years of frustration boil over. Unfortunately for James, it looked as though the eruption wasn't far away. "You honestly can't understand why someone might dislike you instead of fawning over you, can you? And why should you – you're James Potter after all, aren't you, the famous Quidditch player- except you're not! You play for a poxy school team! Not professionally! You're not even Seeker – you're a bloody Chaser, your position's not even unique! But somehow you think that makes it okay for you to hex people who annoy you and that messing up your hair makes you look sexy and interesting, and that you can do stupid bloody things like, oh, I don't know, locking people in cupboards with you?"

James looked nonplussed. He had lifted his head from his chin and was staring at me, hazel eyes wide behind his glasses, his mouth slightly agape with shock at my outburst. It was one he had heard before but rarely with as much venom as right now, and never before as a reason why I didn't give him the time of day. Normally he got it because I'd walked in on him doing something like taking the best seats in the Common Room away from younger students. The last time I'd shouted at him in a big way had been back in fifth year, eighteen months ago, when he'd duelled with Severus. I'd never really gone for him, not before, not like this.

He leant back against the door behind him, still cross-legged, and lifted his finger-locked hands to rest on the back of his head, pushing his hair up as he did so. His awkward position meant that his lean body was stretched out a little, his long legs carefully folded, and his eyes never left my face. The fact that his gaze sent stardust racing inexplicably across my skin irritated me further – how dare he be affecting me like that when I was trying to shout at him? Before I could launch back into my rant he had opened his mouth in an attempt to defend himself.

"You don't know what you're talking about -" was as far as he got before his words fanned the flames of rage in my chest and I stood up, the force of it sending my bucket skittering across the floor. I pointed a finger at him, aware I looked ridiculous, not caring because I'd lost all self-control now anyway.

"You're doing it right now!" I shrieked. I knew it – I'd returned to shrieking in less than five minutes flat. A personal record. "You're so bloody arrogant you actually have the nerve to preach to me about myself! You think you know me so well, when you know nothing! You just assume everything! You clearly thought locking me in here would make me fall in love with you, the same way you hid the key in your trousers because you seriously think I wouldn't go there if I was desperate enough!"

His eyes flicked up to mine now, settling on my eyes alone instead of my entire face. He slid his hands protectively over his lower half.

"Stay out of my trousers, Evans."

I let out a scream of laughter at the absolute ridiculousness of the sentence, and as I did so I felt my resolve snap. I was getting that key, and I was leaving this room. And then, I was researching the most vicious hexes I could find and making sure James Potter could never irritate me ever again.

I launched myself at him for the second time that hour, determined that I would find the key, not particularly caring whereabouts he might have placed it. This time, however, he fully anticipated my attack, and as I fell on him he grabbed my wrists, fending me carefully away from his trousers. His strength surprised me – I was standing and I had the added bonus of being absolutely furious, yet he was easily overpowering me: thus far the closest my fingers had got to the contents of his trousers was scrabbling uselessly at the material. I felt myself being slowly lowered to the floor as we struggled and as my desperation intensified three things clicked into place in my brain at the same time.

I needed that key.He wasn't going to give up – he was stronger, fitter, and more determined than me, and I would get tired first. Drastic times called for drastic measures, and this time was more drastic than most. Distracting him was the only thing that might work, and there was only one way to do that…

This in mind, I executed my hastily thought-of plan quickly, before I could actually think about it and remind myself how low I had truly sunk.

I dipped my head carefully, before either of us even had time to blink, and crushed my lips against his, recklessly, stupidly. I could feel the burn of the day-old stubble on his jaw scraping against my skin as I did. My plan was only partly successful; I felt his grip on my wrists loosen a little, but his body had stiffened beneath him, and though his mouth moved in time to mine he wasn't truly kissing me back. Unexpectedly, this realisation irritated me - I was kissing him, wasn't I? Shouldn't he be enjoying it, at least a little bit? I tried harder, intensifying my kiss, determined he would enjoy it, ignoring the fact that I was starting to. Finally he turned his head, pulling his mouth out of reach, and locked his eyes back on mine.

"Finished?" he asked. I let out an exasperated groan and he gently pushed me from him. "Well, Evans, I've got to admit – I don't know you well enough to expect things like that."

I sat uselessly on the floor, staring at my feet, letting his words wash over me. It was easier to do that than to be inside my head right then. Confusion wasn't the word for the way I felt. All I knew was that I had enjoyed kissing him more than I'd ever thought I would, far more than he clearly had, and I couldn't understand why he'd pushed me away any more than I could understand why I suddenly wished he hadn't.

"Apparently I'm not arrogant enough for you to kiss me when you want something, just for you to never talk to me, right?"

"No." I said the words quietly, sullen. He turned his head to me, an eyebrow raised carefully.

"Oh?"

I sighed. "Look. I know you're not a complete idiot. Oh, don't look so shocked. I know you can be funny and nice and I know you're clever and all of that. But you can also be really, really arrogant, and that's what I can't get past. I know you're a nice person under all that. But your ego ruins you."

I cracked one eye open to look at him: I'd closed them tightly as I spoke – it made being completely honest with him without being ready to kill him as I did so much, much easier. He looked surprised but his frown held concentration rather than offence, as if he was mentally writing this all down for future reference.

"Is that why you've never given me the time of day? Until just now, of course."

I screwed my face up as shame burned it. "Look, can we put 'just now' down to nearly two hours of being locked in a tiny room making me desperate?"

James raised his eyebrow once more; the other slid up to join it this time. "Desperate?"

"No, not desperate – just – a bit – well…oh, you know what I mean!" My exasperation was back, this time without the fury that went with it before. "Look, I like you. I do. But when your hobbies include hexing one of my friends every time you see him – it doesn't matter that we don't talk much anymore, it's still not nice." I added that part before he had time to offer it as an excuse to hate Sev as much as Sev hated him; I'd seen his mouth slide open as I spoke, ready to say it. I continued now. "When you do things like that, how can you expect me to give you a chance?"

"So…." James had returned to frowning, though the corner of his mouth had lifted a little. Clearly, he was having some interesting thoughts. "So, if I stopped all that, and I changed, you'd give me a chance?"

I shrugged: his face fell a little.

"Why not?"

"Well, for a start, how would I know you'd stay like that? Or that you're serious about it?"

"Of course I'd be serious!" James looked mildly outraged at the suggestion he'd be anything other than focussed. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, you might change your mind halfway," I offered lamely, and James shook his head violently.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "You tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. If I do it right, and stick to it, you owe me a date. A proper one. Deal?"

"Sounds fair," I mused. "And what if you lose?"

"You can have anything of mine you want."

I looked sideways at him. "Anything?"

James nodded. "Anything." He held out his hand for me to shake. "So, do we have a deal?"

I hesitated, then took it. He wrapped his fingers firmly around mine; I could feel the calluses from his broomstick sliding over my skin. "Deal. Now, can we get out of this bloody cupboard, please?"

"But of course," James grinned. He pulled me to my feet and strode the three steps it took to get to the cupboard door.

"Shall I turn around while you get the key out?"

"No need," he smiled.

"Why not?"

"It's not in my trousers." To illustrate, he placed his hands behind his neck and lifted a long cord from around it. Dangling from it was a tiny bronze key. I gaped as he inserted into the lock and twisted the handle once.

"Git," I said. He grinned wider in response and stepped aside from the door, indicating with a half-bow and a sweep of his arm that it was to be "Ladies first" to exit. I pushed past him in my eagerness to be free. I'd got halfway down the corridor when I heard his voice calling me back.

"Oi! Evans!"

I turned. "What?"

"You haven't told me my tasks yet!"

Now it was my turn to grin. "I'll get back to you on that." As I walked back to my dormitory, I was practically skipping at the thought of the things I could make James Potter do. It looked like my final year of school would be much, much more fun than the first six had been….

* * *

**_Author's Note_**

**_This story is one I originally began about three, maybe even four, years ago, which was up on the site under the imaginative title of "The Trials of James Potter." I got about four chapters in before I realised that it was absolutely awful, and that I was literally making it up as I went along, and therefore I took it down again. _**

**_However, I have since revised it and this is the new, vastly improved, version. I know precisely where the story is going and it's written far better than the original. So this is chapter one, I hope you enjoyed it. I don't know when chapter two will be up, but it's all been planned out, so it shouldn't be too far away. _**

**_The quote above is from one of my favourite books, as written beneath it, because I loved that line and I thought it worked perfectly for this particular story. I highly recommend it – it's beautifully written and very original. _**

**_(Also, I have had emails before in other fics telling me that I spelt "inane" wrong and it needs an 's'. "Inane" is a word, meaning 'silly, pointless, foolish', and not a misspelling of "insane!" So please, please don't email me telling me I've spelt it wrong as it gets very annoying after a while, especially as most of the emails are very patronising even though they're completely wrong! )_**


	2. Taking Extreme Measures

_~ "I thought I was a fool for no one, but ooh, baby, I'm a fool for you." ~ _

Muse, _Supermassive Black Hole_

**Chapter Two – Taking Extreme Measures**

As always, James Potter surprised me.

I shouldn't have been, though. Not really. James always seemed to be the kind of person who would never change – predictably persistent, unavoidably stubborn. I mean, you have to have a certain kind of nature just to do what he's spent the last six years doing and not get depressed at the sheer amount of rejection I handed him on a daily basis. For a start, the boy had skin thicker than a dragon's – I honestly reached points during certain heated exchanges where words literally failed me. When I say they failed me, I don't mean that I couldn't think of any to say – I mean that no matter which combination of them I used or which particular words I selected, they did no more damage than if I'd simply placed a Tickling Charm on him. No matter how much venom I inserted into them, there were very few occasions on which James' 'winning' smile would be wiped from his face; even then I would at best manage to cause it to hitch slightly, sliding a little from his mouth.

For another thing, the boy never, ever gave up. On anything. There was stubbornness and then there was James Potter. The boy was in a league entirely of his own. I'd seen him go without dinner for three days just to prove to Sirius that he could do it; I honestly believe the only reason he gave in was because Sirius, clearly scared by how pale his friend was getting already, admitted defeat and handed over the sixteen Galleons as promised. I had personal experience of how persistent he could be, how determined and how _extreme_ he could get – two hours in a cupboard hadn't been necessary to teach me that lesson but it had certainly made the point of it clearer. This was a boy who would happily go to any lengths to win and get what he wanted.

So I really shouldn't have been surprised by anything that happened next.

The first shock was that he gave me my wand back. I hadn't even realised I didn't have it: I'd been so glad to get out of that cupboard and back into the light, and so full of giddy wonderment at the thought that in the space of just two hours James had managed to get me to do the two things I'd always sworn to myself were impossible (#1 - Kissing him. Willingly. And #2 - Promising him I'd actually, seriously, consider letting him win.) that I just didn't think to retrieve my wand from him. By the time I did realise, when I'd tried to use it after having reached the statue of the enormous, stunned-looking troll on the second floor that hid a shortcut to the girl's dormitories – okay, so maybe James _did_ have one or two useful ideas that came in handy every so often – it was far too late to turn back and demand its return. James would have been long gone from the cupboard by then, and who knew where he could be? The castle was enormous.

So, huffing and sighing irritably, my annoyance with him more or less fully restored by this new turn of events, I turned from the shortcut and headed towards the stairs, resigning myself to the five-storey climb. There were lots of other shortcuts I could have taken, but almost all of them required the use of my wand at some point, even the ones that involved whispering passwords I wasn't supposed to know (and wouldn't have were it not for James and his friends) to certain portraits.

By the time I reached my dormitory, I wasn't in the best of moods, to say the least. I was tired, I was irritated, and I was trying to work out whether I'd actually gone temporarily insane in that cupboard or if James had just somehow managed to slip me some Amortentia whilst we were in there. Maybe he had worked out how to pump it into the air, so that I breathed it in without realising? Like mustard gas, only deadlier. No, that was paranoid. That was silly, and ridiculous and stupid and....admittedly, it was probably something I could see him doing, if he got desperate enough. I shook my head to dispel the evil thought. That was sick – of course he wouldn't do that. Annoyingly, this only left my insanity theory.

The sight of my wand, lying neatly atop my pillow, did very little to disprove that theory.

"What the _hell_ -?"

How had it got there? I definitely hadn't done it – my wand had definitely been sticking out of James' pocket as I left that cupboard. He could probably have beaten me up here, easily – he had a wand, for a start, and he knew even more shortcuts than I did. He'd probably had time to sneak down to the kitchens for a snack first. But none of that mattered – even if he _had_ got here before me, how had he managed to get into the girl's dormitories to put it there? The stairs had been just as solid and concrete as always when I'd walked up them a minute ago: there was no hint of the smooth slide they became whenever a male reached a certain altitude on them. And if he'd handed the wand to one of my friends they'd have given it to me personally, not left it on my pillow – that is, if they weren't all in Hogsmeade right now, and therefore not even in the castle to be given the wand in the first place. (I hadn't gone that morning due to feeling ill and then, when I felt better and was hurrying through the castle to the Entrance Hall to join them, James had intercepted me on the way and led me to that cupboard, insisting we both had to see the new Common Room and that it was too late to go to Hogsmeade now anyway. It was spooky – like he'd somehow _known_ precisely where I would be and when I would be there and had stepped out from behind that statue deliberately.)

I'd almost made up my mind that he really had somehow got one of my friends up here to place it on my pillow, until I saw what rested beneath the wand. A sheet of parchment, neatly folded in half, with my name scribbled carefully on the top. It was his handwriting: I could tell by the neat slope of the surprisingly elegant script.

_Lily Evans _

I snatched it up and unfolded it hurriedly. It wasn't a particularly long note: either way, I read it hungrily, three times, trying to work out the double meaning, if there was any, trying to word my response for when I saw him, and trying at the same time to work out how the hell he'd got this here in the first place.

_Lily_, he wrote, _I thought you might be looking for this- you ran off before I got a chance to return it to you. _

_I'm very intrigued by those tasks you mentioned -– why don't you come and find me when you've decided what they'll be, and we can arrange our deal properly? Try to be reasonable, though. Nothing painful or unnecessarily humiliating, right?_

_Looking forward to it, _

_James_

_X_

I was not impressed. Clearly, he'd taken my desperate attempts to convince him to let me leave that cupboard seriously. But not seriously enough that he was worried in any way. I frowned. That couldn't be right. Did he honestly think that, if I thought of the challenges I'd promised him, I would let him off that easily? Did he really think I'd let him sit back and relax?

I sat down slowly on the edge of my bed, his letter still sitting loosely in my hand. My eyes flickered over the softly scratched markings his quill had made without taking any of them in this time: my mind was racing as I tried to think of the perfect tasks for him. They had to be just right. They had to prove I wasn't some prize to be won after he'd worn me down enough; I had to be _earned_ if he wanted me as much as he said he did. But they had to be difficult enough that I could legitimately give him a chance. And, of course, they had to be a challenge, or he simply wouldn't accept them. James loved a challenge – it was evident within five seconds of meeting him. If he sensed you didn't like him he wouldn't give in until you did; if you liked him, you had to love him before he was satisfied. If you were bored, you had to be entertained, and the harder you fought him, the harder he tried to win. It's why he enjoyed baiting Filch so much – finding new ways to torment our caretaker brought him unimaginable pleasure.

I decided there would be three challenges. Three sounded like a nice, even number – it felt right. Not too many, not too few. _Perfect_. But what to make him do? What would affect him enough that it would prove to me how serious he was? Where might he draw the line? _Would_ he?

By the time twilight had set in and the sky was streaked with deep pinks and inky blues, I had the first of the challenges outlined in my head. My friends returned as I was laying back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling and humming softly to myself as I pictured his expression tomorrow when I told him my conditions. I rolled onto my side, pretending to be asleep so that their chatter wouldn't distract me as I plotted; with my eyes squeezed tightly shut the images strengthened as I pictured every possible outcome.

James Potter wouldn't know what hit him.

~ * ~

What was _wrong_ with me?

It was Tuesday evening, three days after the Cupboard Incident, as I now termed it privately. The day afterwards, Sunday, I had found James in the Common Room after breakfast and invited him for a walk. The excitement in his eyes was as poorly disguised as ever, though he kept his distance as we strolled through the castle, avoiding the excitable first-years as they ran through the corridors. The corners of his mouth were hitched up into a little smile as we went and every so often he chuckled softly at some happy mental image: I didn't ask what he was thinking. I was worried I could guess with considerable accuracy.

We walked in silence for long moments, finding ourselves climbing higher and higher until we reached the flat stone expanse that was the top of Gryffindor Tower. Pausing, James leant so that his elbows rested atop the parapet, looking out across the grounds, his face naturally turning in the direction of the Quidditch Pitch. The sun rested lightly on his face, the smooth skin a creamy honey colour from his many hours spent training for Quidditch matches: though it was late September the days were still generally long enough and warm enough for the heat of the sun to have made a difference. I followed suit, unsure of how to begin the conversation now that we were here. Luckily for me, James took the initiative.

"I assume you've thought of my tasks, then, Evans**." **He spoke casually, amiably, with no inflection. It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded nonetheless.

"Yes," I answered, suddenly nervous and furious with myself because of it, because it was ridiculous. I hugged my arms around myself so I wouldn't give myself away by biting my nails in front of him.

James smiled softly and turned his lean body so that he was facing me, his back balanced carefully against the stone. "Let's hear them, then."

I paused, trying to recall the wording of the first of my carefully-prepared requests. There was soft sunlight nestled in his dark hair, and it was distracting me. I frowned at it and, misunderstanding, he ran a hand smoothly through it, scattering the bright rays and making it shine more brilliant shades of gold and brown than I could name. I shook my head and began to speak, my original idea destroyed by this sudden new inspiration.

"Your hair," I said quickly, then bit my lip to stop the flow of the words that had erupted in my mind. That hadn't been what I was about to say at all, but I couldn't help it. James leaned forward, confused: I watched the long strands of his hair swing forward as he did so, rippling in the light.

"My hair?" He ran a hand back through it and then stared absently at his fingers, as though expecting to find the answer threaded between them, fished from his hair. His hazel eyes snapped back to mine. "What about it?" The hand returned to his head: it remained buried in his hair, flashes of pale skin showing through the flashes of light in his dark hair.

"_That_!" I cried, forgetting any attempt at regaining my composure. "That – you have to stop doing that!"

James' frown deepened: a bemused grin began to curl his lips up. "I don't understand -"

"Stop messing your hair up on purpose," I said firmly. He slowly removed his hand and dropped it to his side."It doesn't look sexy; it looks like there's something living in it and you can't think how else to get it out!"

"I can't help it," James said honestly: I could see his fingers twitched even as he spoke, dying to run back through the dark strands. They fell messily over his head now, the longer section of his fringe resting lightly above his eyes and I knew he wanted to brush it aside. "Does it really annoy you that much?"

I bit my lip and nodded: it would sound bitchy, however I said it. But he'd asked for a challenge and he was getting it. To my intense surprise, he nodded, his face thoughtful.

"Fair enough." His voice sounded very resigned, as if he'd just received some appalling news and was making the best of putting a brave face on it. "Your wish is my command, Evans."

He lifted himself gracefully from the parapet so that he stood perfectly upright and still in one swift, fluid movement and hitched a smile at me in farewell, turning to leave the Tower.

"Wait!" I called after him. "Don't you want to hear the rest of the tasks?"

He shook his head and smiled softly once more. "Not yet."

"Why not?"

He shrugged casually and rested his eyes on mine: I felt a cool shiver run down the length of my spine as his gaze locked onto mine and I tried to recall the threads of my conversation, determined he wouldn't affect me in the strange way he had been lately. Not this time.

"It'll give me more to work for," he offered by way of explanation, in his irritating way of answering the question and explaining nothing whatsoever. "This way, if I fail this first task, I don't get to find out what else you've got planned for me, do I?"

"But – why are you rushing off?" It was irrational and it was irritating, but I didn't want him to go. I wanted to speak to him. The feeling was alien enough to startle me: I screwed my face up a little in confusion and felt some of the familiar annoyance return when his own face creased into a smirk at the sight of mine. He reached out and gave my arm a gentle squeeze that tipped more butterflies into my stomach, ones I still couldn't explain. I waited for him to unlace his fingers from my flesh.

He didn't move.

I felt my face tip up towards his unexpectedly, as though I had no control over it, and as his own head lowered a little I fought furiously with myself not to remember how it had felt to kiss him, how soft his mouth had been. His eyes were half-closed: I was all too aware of how small the shrinking space between our bodies was in that moment. I was sure that I had a convincing argument for why he could stay but at that moment I wasn't entirely capable of using it. His gaze rested lightly on my parted lips and then his own mouth twisted in his trademark lopsided grin and his eyes flickered suddenly to mine, making me jump slightly.

"No time like the present, eh, Evans?"

It took me a few seconds to remember what his words were in response to whilst I tried not to notice the way his eyes were blazing with an emotion I couldn't name though I was sure I recognised it. It looked like smugness, but I knew that if I had pressed my mouth to his in that moment I would have tasted triumph instead on his lips. His hot fingers trailed lightly across my face, cupping my cheek momentarily and making my skin tingle where the ghost of his touch remained afterwards, and then continued walking smoothly away, as assured as ever.

It took me a few moments to compose myself once again. My stomach was spinning: I tried to shake away the odd sensation, but when I stood still once more the confusion was as present as ever. This wasn't the plan. He wasn't supposed to be able to affect me that way. He was supposed to run away at the mere mention of my requirements, or he was supposed to fail them. Not accept them gladly and rush off to complete them. I frowned, annoyed. I'd thought he couldn't get more irritating. I realised then that I had been completely mistaken. Where James Potter was concerned, very little was impossible.

~ * ~

_Oh, for the love of...._

I could hear a low thrumming sound as I approached the Common Room ten minutes later, a few minutes behind James. It sounded odd and I couldn't make it out at first: as I drew closer to the sound it became clearer, turning into a low, constant hum. I knew this hum. It was the same hum that filled the Common Room to the brim after Quidditch matches and whenever James and his friends were about to announce whatever new scheme they'd conjured to torment Filch or some first-year. Eventually, as I reached the portrait hole, the hum spun itself out into threads, so that I could distinguish the excitement quivering along each one, so that I could hear individual voices amidst the mass of chattering. The chattering seemed quieter than usual, as though the crowd it emanated from were more awed than impressed.

There could only be one reason for that.

"Caterwauling Crups." I muttered the password quickly and the portrait hole swung obligingly open: barely waiting for the way to be clear I shoved my head and shoulders carelessly through the hole, scrambling through in my desperation to find out exactly what James had done this time.

The sight that greeted me should have been something I prepared for. It should have been something he warned me about. At the very least it should have been something that didn't surprise me at all.

Of course, "should" doesn't necessarily always mean "does". Especially, as I was very rapidly discovering, where James Potter was concerned.

His back was to me. He stood on the squashy armchair he always sat in by the fire, though he had dragged it to the centre of the room: I recognised it by the fact none of the other chairs in the room had a large burn mark on the back of it the way this one did. There was a small crowd gathered around him, all of them contributing to the buzzing of chatter. I could see Sirius and Remus standing towards the back, Remus looking doubtful and dubious, Sirius's dark eyes bright with impish glee and locked on his best friend.

I knew what James was about to do before he did it, though I couldn't clearly hear any of the words he was saying. I knew he was speaking, because people in the crowd were nodding, and I could hear that a certain thread of the hum resonated the way only his voice did. I watched him raise his wand and I did nothing, because I knew he was going to fix his hair once and for all. I waited for him to perform the charm on himself that would prevent him from ruffling his hair, the charm that would render his hair un-messable.

What I saw, however, was James resolutely slashing his wand towards his head so that the flash of brilliant purple light fell like a guillotine across his hair as he cried out the words to a spell I had never heard of.

The silence in the heartbeat after he did this was the heaviest I'd ever encountered. James lifted a slightly hesitant hand to his head, starting to push it through the thick strands. I waited for his hand to be repelled by his head. Instead, his hair moved with him, pushing back with his fingers so that when he pulled his hand away I could see the long thick black hairs tangled between them, brighter even than the pale expanse of bare scalp he was now displaying. He lifted his hand and held it aloft, straight out, wiggling his fingers so that the hairs fell languidly to the floor.

My mouth fell open with shock, matching the expression of everyone in the room apart from Sirius, who clearly had been expecting this and had probably provided him with the spell. _I tell you to stop playing with your hair all the time _, I thought, _and your solution is to become a _skinhead? _You complete and utter _idiot_._

The silence snapped.

The laughter that replaced it bordered on the hysterical. Not that James seemed particularly bothered by it: he continued pushing his fingers through his hair, pulling it easily and neatly from his head so that I could see that the skin on the top of his head was just as clear and as smooth as the skin that pulled along the seam of his jaw when he smiled, the way he smiled now. Soon the little pile of clippings at his feet was fat and with a sweep of his wand Remus removed this.

James' eyes snapped up unexpectedly to meet mine, his grin widening just as quickly, though his head hadn't moved. He had an unnerving habit of doing this – he would not be looking at you, and then he would blink and in that split second his eyes would shift to be staring at you. I wasn't used to it enough not to start a little every time he did it.

He stepped lithely from the sofa, pushing through the little crowd and ignoring Sirius' gleeful cries of: "Oi, Ghandi!" and his attempts to rub his now bald head. He made his way slowly but resolutely over to me and stopped in front of me, folding his arms in triumph. When I said nothing for long moments his triumphant grin hitched a little, uncertainty seeping in. I realised I was still gaping at him.

"So..." he began, clearly fishing. "You, er, you like it?"

I made an effort to close my mouth and stop staring at him. "It's, er..." I failed utterly: I couldn't help my eyes swivelling upwards to rest on his head. He looked so....alien without his hair. It was unsettling to say the least. "It's different." I finished lamely.

James frowned: I bit down the laugh that bubbled in my throat at how funny he looked when he frowned like that, with his hair so stupidly short. "Good different?" he asked, looking hopeful. "Or bad different."

"Just...." I spread my hands helplessly and shrugged a little. "_Different_. It's not exactly what I had in mind."

"Hey," James said quickly, the grin creeping back again. "You said I had to stop playing with my hair, didn't you?"

"Yes," I agreed, nodding. "But I didn't once say you had to get _rid_ of it!"

James shrugged apologetically: his eyes were blazing once again with the same intensity as they had on the roof just minutes ago. "I said I'd stop playing with my hair. I can't play with it if I don't have any." He stepped lightly towards me: I waited for my feet to move automatically back but they didn't seem to be listening to my reasoning but to the fire that raced across my skin at his new proximity. When they didn't budge I settled for drawing my arms across my body, folding them like a protection from whatever he might do. I knew it would not be any worse than a kiss. I also knew that it likely wouldn't be anything better either, and I fought with all my might against this unwanted feeling.

James had stopped moving. "One thing you need to remember about me, Evans," he said, choosing his words carefully, his eyes roaming over my face slowly. Finally they rested on mine and I felt my throat close with longing. "I'm a man of my word."

_Note to self. _I thought. _Word all future requests to James **very** carefully._

* * *

**I wanted the above quote because it fit perfectly and also because, quite simply, Muse rock. And surprisingly a lot of their lyrics fit the mood of this chapter, but I absolutely love **_**Supermassive Black Hole**_** so it had to win. **

**I hope people liked this, and if you did please make my day by reviewing. If you didn't then let me know what I can do to improve it. **


	3. The Loser Takes It All

_~ "Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. " ~_

- Author Unknown

**Chapter Three – The Loser Takes It All**

The crunching sound was like poetry.

I lowered the pestle carefully and ground the beetle shells, imagining each and every one of them wore James Potter's face. I watched my clenched fist crush each shell to a fine, shimmering powder, picturing his perfect and annoying smile dissipating with each turn of the pestle. It felt good. I felt in control again, for the first time in several weeks. I experimented with lowering the pestle slowly, so that the beetle-James could clearly see the instrument of his destruction as it descended upon his stupid shaved head and obliterated his smug grin. I felt the beginnings of a smug smile of my own tugging at my mouth. This was even better. It wasn't until I had started to slam the pestle into the mortar and attracted the attention of the rest of the class that I felt maybe I had gotten a little too involved in the fantasy.

"Miss Evans?" Professor Slughorn's voice was hesitant. "Is everything all right?"

I started. "Oh. I, um -" The pestle fell with a clatter to the stone floor and rolled beneath my chair.

Professor Slughorn drew closer to my desk. His shoes clicked on the stone, and I could hear the scraping of his heels as they moved across the floor because not one other person in the room was making a sound; every one of them had swivelled in their seats to focus all of their attention on me. He had to turn sideways to manoeuvre his large stomach between a couple of the chairs: out of the corner of my eye I could see Sirius Black puffing out his cheeks in imitation, making his friends snigger quietly. Kneeling, Professor Slughorn retrieved the pestle. He straightened with an audible click of his knees and he handed it back to me with a smile.

"Perhaps a little less force in future, Miss Evans, hmm?"

"Yes, sir." I took the pestle and forced a smile to my face in return. "Sorry."

Professor Slughorn beamed at me and turned his attention back to his lesson. I felt a moment's relief that he hadn't pursued the reason for my distraction, not to mention my extra vehemence that day; if he hadn't been hinting for the past month that I should stop by the Slug Club one night, "just to see if I like it," I might have had some quick lies to invent.

"Now, if you have successfully stewed your Billywig stings and added the powdered beetle shells, this should be what the contents of your cauldron will look like," Professor Slughorn intoned, scooping some of his steaming concoction into a flask. A dirty green froth slid lazily down the sides. "Remember not to breathe the smoke in directly – well, if you want to avoid a trip to the Hospital Wing, that is. Hysteria and nausea are not amusing side-effects..."

One by one I felt my classmates' gazes shift focus from me, their interest lost, until all of them were focusing on the flask Slughorn was holding up.

Well, almost all of them.

James Potter, never one to miss his cue, leaned forward in his seat (strategically chosen to be the one right behind mine, of course). I was so attuned to his presence by now that I could feel him move without even seeing him. It was as though the air around him was displaced, so that I felt it slide past to allow his movement.

"Something wrong, Evans? You seem distracted." His voice might have sounded concerned to a casual observer. Unfortunately for him, I was no casual observer, and he was last on my list of People I Trusted.

"Shut up, Potter." I let the words fall out of the side of my mouth, and he caught them all, though without the general glee my irritation seemed to inspire in him.

"Okay," he said pleasantly. He leant back in his seat and returned his focus to Professor Slughorn's lesson, perfectly willing to leave me in peace. There was a serene, almost satisfied smile on his face, and I felt my annoyance spike. He'd been doing this for weeks now.

Almost a month ago, when I had first suggested to James that he could change a few things about himself before I'd consider giving him a chance – perhaps a little demanding and precious of me, but in my defence he had some _seriously_ annoying habits – I hadn't counted on him actually doing that. At the most, I'd considered the possibility of his changing his ways for maybe a week before promptly becoming bored or forgetting his promise and returning to the old James I knew and resented. After all, on every past occasion that I'd requested (generally quite vehemently) that he leave me alone, he'd acquiesced for around forty-seven minutes on average (I'd counted, once.) before annoying me again, and I'd had every confidence that this would be what happened this time, too.

But he hadn't.

Not only had James agreed wholeheartedly to my terms, he had fulfilled each one so far to the letter. His head was still almost bald, though I'd noticed he had allowed some of the thick black hair to regrow, cropped close to his skull so that it almost looked like a shadow against his pale skin. It suited him, I'd noticed with irritation. That hadn't been the plan. I'd just wanted him to stop showing off with it, and instead all I'd managed to do was actually make him even more attractive to some of the other girls in our year. Evie Stewart seemed to be making it her mission to get him to notice her – not that he'd taken in the fact her hair was now the same pitch-black as his, nor her affected "girlish" (she _wished_) laugh. I'd overheard her in the toilets last week discussing how much more masculine (and therefore handsome) his haircut had made him. It somehow emphasised his eyes, so that without the distraction of that wiry black tangle the hazel seemed more defined. You could count the flecks of colour there; the tiny slices of yellow amidst the brown; the way his eyes seemed almost amber or orange when the sunlight hit them at just the right angle.

Not that I'd been looking.

So. Task One had transpired to be a dismal back-firing mess of a task, but a task I couldn't deny he had passed with flying colours. He'd cornered me after dinner two nights ago just to hear me say those words out loud.

He'd actually closed his eyes as if in revelry when I said them.

But I was prepared this time. I had spent several nights this week lying awake in my bed, discarding idea after idea, wondering desperately what I could ask him to do next that might actually get through to him. My brain was littered with the remnants of the bad ones I'd come up with. But finally I had hit upon a solution last night. I had my second task all figured out, and this time, I was going to hit him where it would really hurt.

I looked up. Professor Slughorn was still discussing the effects of the potion we were making, and shamelessly flattering Carolina Denby over the fact her aunt Esther had been one of his brightest students. He would not notice me for several minutes: at least, not while Carolina's anecdotes held out. Tearing a square off the bottom of the nearest sheet of parchment, I picked up my quill and bent over it, scribbling hurriedly.

_Potter, _I wrote, then scribbled it out. Too cold? But writing _James_ seemed too personal – and he would definitely read into it.

I shook my head. I was being ridiculous.

_James_, I wrote, and fought the urge to scratch that out, too. I paused, deciding the arrangement of the words, and then began to write, slowly and carefully.

_You can stop annoying me now. I've decided your next task, and it won't be as easy as shaving your head. (For the billionth time, by the way, you passed that one. There, it's in writing now, so you can stop asking!) _

_When I told you what I don't like about you, being arrogant and thinking you're something special because you can play Quidditch well was pretty much top of that list, as I'm sure you remember. I think part of the problem is because everyone else thinks you're so great and practically worships you, just because Gryffindor wins a lot, and a big part of that is probably because you help make sure they win._

_So I want you to lose the next match. _

_Not just lose it, either. You have to play the worst you've ever played in your life, and you have to make it convincing. Prove to me that there's something more important to you than being popular and good at Quidditch, and then I'll decide if you deserve to make it to the last task. _

_Deal?_

_Lily_

I reread the note carefully, then folded it in half and hidden it in my closed fist. I stretched my arms into the air, as if I were stretching, and I opened my hand to let the note fall. It landed with a quiet patter onto James' desk. There was a brief hiatus before I felt him move behind me, reaching for my message. I listened as he opened it silently, and I heard the intake of breath from him as he read my conditions.

Sixty seconds later, a tap on my back let me know he had his reply ready.

I cupped my palm and put my arm behind my back, so that he could drop the note into my hand. The wrinkled parchment sat lightly on my skin. I carefully unfolded it and read the words scratched there. If I had expected protests, if I had anticipated a list of requirements and conditions and loopholes, I was very much mistaken. His message was short and to the point.

_Fine. It's a deal. Two things, though. _

_Define "convincingly."_

_You're evil._

I smiled. _Evil. _He hadn't seen anything yet...

Over a week had passed since I had sent James the details of his second task. There were still two days until the next Quidditch match, and James had wasted no time in discerning my precise requirements for his performance. On the many occasions over the past week during which he had begged me for more information on his task (fourteen times, at my last count), I had told him I didn't care what he did, or how he did it. The team could win, ultimately, but not for any reason related to him. He had to play the worst game of his life, and he had to do it consistently, for the entire match. No cheating. No loopholes. I would be watching closely to check.

"Evans...you're killing me."

He drew a tired hand down his face, having originally lifted it to push through the thick dark strands of his hair before remembering once again that it wasn't long enough for that. Since I had told him he could grow it back (which he'd only taken as true once he'd received his second task) it seemed to be sprouting at an alarming rate – it already looked several centimetres longer than yesterday. I wasn't sure if it was just because there had been so little hair there to begin with that any growth was immediately obvious, or whether James (or, more likely, Remus who was, after all, the superior wizard, if only because he actually worked at it) had enlisted some kind of magical help. I suspected it was some combination of the two, though I was sure that had he really wanted it all back he'd had sprouted a full head of hair within twenty minutes of receiving my permission to do so.

"I – I can't _lose_, Evans. I just..." He seemed lost for words and altogether too full of them, as though his brain were offering him a million potential sentences, yet none of the right ones, so that instead they pooled upon his tongue, fat and useless. "That's a big thing to ask. You know that. It's not just me who loses if I play badly, it's everyone."

We were standing together at the foot of the Grand Staircase, me having cornered James as he exited the Hall after breakfast. (Porridge for me. Eggs and copious amounts of bacon, for him. I'd been watching him more and more often lately, entirely unintentionally. I found myself inexplicably attuned to his presence, as though he'd slipped some kind of spell around my subconsciousness, so that I could almost feel him there, when he wasn't.)

"Sorry," I told him, trying to inject a note of genuine apology into my voice and failing spectacularly at it. "You asked what I wanted, and that's what I want."

James closed his eyes and gave a wry, humourless smile. "They're all gonna hate me for this - you know that, right?"

"Not for long," I said. He looked so dejected that I wondered for a wild moment whether I'd been too harsh on him. Then I recalled the many, many occasions on which he'd driven me to distraction and decided that he definitely deserved a little wake-up call. "It's only one match, after all. You get to win as much as you like after that."

James' eyes lit up momentarily with a sudden flare of hope. "Can I pretend to be sick?"

I was already shaking my head. "Sorry," I repeated. "All above board."

He slumped again. "Worth a shot. You drive a hard bargain, Evans."

I sighed. "Look, if I'm going to give you a chance, I need to know I'm important to you -"

"You _are_ important to me," James growled, but I pressed on as if he hadn't spoken.

" - _more_ important than, say, winning _yet another_ Quidditch match."

There was a very pregnant pause, though I couldn't have said what hung in the air between us. James seemed to be fighting an internal battle with himself, and I didn't have any words other than those I'd already spoken. I didn't know what to say to him. I wasn't going to change the circumstances of my request, and I certainly wasn't going to let him off the hook. For the first time in the six years that I'd known him he seemed, _finally_, to be listening to me and what I actually thought and felt – he was listening to me speak and hearing the meaning and the inflection behind the words, rather than simply applying them to whatever suited him best. When I told him, "I need you to change," he at last seemed to hear just those words, not "Ask me again in twenty minutes" or "I'm just in a bad mood today."

I studied his face, wondering when he'd become so mature. He seemed familiar to me yet altogether alien, all at the same time; as though someone had pulled apart the smooth skin of his face and rewired his brain completely, turning him into a stranger who happened to wear James Potter's face. It was eerie, and intriguing. I felt my fingers twitch. He still hadn't said anything, and I found myself aching with a sudden random impulse to stroke his skin. I restrained myself. Bad idea. He'd only see it as a green light to lean in for a stolen kiss, and that wasn't something I wanted to do. Definitely not. Not really. Not...well, at the very least, he hadn't earned it yet, had he? There'd been that kiss in the cleaning supply closet, when we'd been trapped, but he hadn't returned it, so it didn't count. And it also didn't count that last time, just after he'd shaved his head, when he'd been so close I could taste his breath and my heart and stomach had been doing backflips, surely not; it didn't count if his lips had only brushed mine, did it, not if they hadn't closed around mine completely...

And then, he did something that caught me completely off-guard, pulling me instantly from my confused thoughts.

His eyes snapped up to meet mine, so that the force of his gaze seemed to knock the breath out of me. The hazel of his eyes seemed to throw out sparks. It felt as though he were looking straight through me, as though the fragile membrane of my skin had been replaced with translucent glass so that he could see where my heart beat. His face was utterly expressionless. I'd been right. I didn't know this new James.

But I liked him a hell of a lot better than the old one.

"Do you think I won't do it, Evans?" he said in a low voice, one that held remnants of his earlier angry growl. "D'you think I'll choose Quidditch?"

I faltered. "D-don't know. You tell me."

I watched as the beginnings of a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth – not his usual composed, arrogant grin; one that was determined and ragged and almost angry all at the same time.

"I'll do better than that, Evans. I'll bloody _prove _it." He punctuated this by leaning forward and planting a firm kiss against my cheek. "See you Saturday."

"Yeah." _Guess I will._

_Who the _hell_ had decided it would be a clever idea to let _Sirius_ give the commentary for the match today?_

"And for those of you who are confused by the huge hairy thing flailing around up there, do not panic! It's just our very own Mr James Potter, who you may recall was bald all last month and looked bloody brilliant if I may say so, which I think I may.."

Loud enough to be heard even over the rumble of laughter at his choice of words, Sirius' jocular tones rang out across the Quidditch pitch, ensuring even the most disinterested spectator couldn't fail either to recognise his voice or to notice that James Potter, that well-known quite-good player, was playing today. I rolled my eyes. I was huddled in the stand beside Sirius, at James' insistence that I must have one of the best views of the match, my Omnioculars* pressed firmly to my eyes so that I would not miss a single shoddy move of James'.

Listening to Sirius commentate was like hearing the inner monologue of a small child suffering from ADHD. It was very distracting hearing him chatter excitedly about the match whilst I struggled to find James through my Omnioculars and follow the match at the same time.

"There's Aarons, ducking a very determined Bludg – oooh, that must've hurt! Shake it off, mate! Yeah, that's it...Oh, nice pass to Nebeski – oh, come on, even I could've scored then, I dunno, bloody amateurs..."

High above our heads I was searching the sky for sight of James. So far every time I had thought I caught sight of him I had been mistaken but this time I was certain that was him pretending to hurtle towards the ground in a fair imitation of the Wronski Feint - though he wasn't a Seeker, and the movements of the Snitch should have held no interest for him, so there was no reason for him to be diving to earth beside sheer showmanship. I frowned.

He lost points for that.

**To anyone still bothering to read this – firstly, thank you! And my apologies for the obscenely long time between updates. Life got in the way, and then so did writer's block because it had been so long since I'd written anything. But I'm back now, and updates should follow more frequently now. I hope this has been a little worth the wait. Please let me know your thoughts: they are appreciated. The action will continue in the next chapter, obviously, which should be coming soon!**

**dogstar**

_*I have included Omnioculars, because I couldn't find anything in the canon that says they were a new invention at the "Goblet of Fire" Quidditch World Cup, therefore am assuming that they were available during Lily and James' time. _


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